Author
Topic: The Origin of Evil (Read 693 times)

A number of fathers say that humanity was responsible for the creation of evil. For example:

"[Man] himself became the inventor of evil; he did not come across it as something already created by God. For God did not make death; it was man who became, so to speak, the originator and creator of evil." - St. Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, 12

Yet wasn't Satan evil before man's fall, and didn't Satan introduce evil into the world? In Genesis it says that the serpent was "subtil" or "crafty," (Gen. 3:1) and the serpent tricked Adan and Eve into eating of the tree and therefore disobeying God (Gen. 3:1-7). Wouldn't this bit of trickery mean that Satan was the creator of evil in this world? Also, wouldn't the very fact that Satan was on the earth at that point demonstrate that he had already fallen from his place in heaven, and had therefore introduced pride and evil into God's creation?

"Although the serpent was cunning, it was only more cunning than the dumb animals that were governed by Adam. It is not true that because the serpent surpassed the level of animals in cleverness, it was immediately raised up to the level of human rationality. It was only more clever than those animals that lack reason and was only more crafty than the animals that had no mind. For it is clear that the serpent, which did not have the mind of man, did not possess the wisdom of mankind. Adam was also greater than the serpent by the way he was formed, by his soul, by his mind, by his glory and by his place. Therefore it is evident that in cunning also Adam was infinitely greater than the serpent." ~ St. Ephrem the Syrian; Commentary on Genesis 2.15.1 Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Genesis 1:11

Logged

"The Scots-Irish; Brewed in Scotland, bottled in Ireland, uncorked in America." ~Scots-Irish saying